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What are people's thoughts on this?
My favourite part:
Dear oh dear...Willing to travel and must posses the ability to be an effective communicator.
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What are people's thoughts on this?
My favourite part:
Dear oh dear...Willing to travel and must posses the ability to be an effective communicator.
Last edited by DaBeeeenster; 04-05-2004 at 08:58 AM.
"All our beliefs are being challenged now, and rightfully so, they're stupid." - Bill Hicks
I think it is disgraceful that countries are using illegal tactics to circumnavigate international law by using civilian contractors who are unaccountable under Geneva.
The Cow by Ogden Nash
The cow is of the bovine ilk;
One end is moo, the other, milk.
I just think that's really funny. Like the bit about having to be good with Word & Excel
Knight 1: We are now no longer the Knights who say Ni.
Knight 2: NI.
Other Knights: Shh...
Knight 1: We are now the Knights who say..."Ekki-Ekki-Ekki-Ekki-PTANG. Zoom-Boing. Z'nourrwringmm.
Part of the torture routine is the forced use of these programs to do complicated tasks, whilst the auto-help is running, I expect. Fkn paperclip.Originally Posted by GreenPiggy
the weird thing about this is that once again....its not new!
Every Country, ours included, that has ever needed to INTEROGATE someone has had the ability to "export" them to a country that is happy to do it in a successfull way.....the difference is that we're only just seeing it "out of the bag" now.
Radio 4 summed it up well this am....well, an interviewed blokey did.
Three things to understand.
A: Interogation: this does not always include TORTURE it is.,....INTEROGATION.
B: When discussing Resitance to Interogation, they always drag out a few ex SAS boys, who were taught how to resist INTEROGATION by the opposition.....but NOT how to do it the same way themselves.....so anyone who was SUBJECT TO INTEROGATION RISK, ie dropped behind enemy lines.....was taught how to resist it....and that involves US INTEROGATING OUR OWN MEN!
C: TORTURE is not always what it seems.....it is still horrible but its not always the same as we see....on the news...it has many forms, most of which are humiliation....not pain orientated!
Not really on either side of this argument....just interested in it!
It's a generally held concept in the west that physical torture is not effective in getting information out of people. Basically, beating the crap out of someone til they talk will result in the subject telling you anything just to stop you beating them up. Normally something they think you want to hear.
So we have interrogation techniques. The question is. Does this represent torture? Cherie Blair and her ambulance/deportee chasers would no doubt say yes.....providing they got a juicy fee out of it. Probably any sane person who witnessed or was subject to it would probably say yes too. Though for less mercenary reasons. It's a mental process as opposed to a violent physical process. Trained interrogators will probably get the information in the end.
Next question. Just who are the Iraqis in question here. Are they passers by in the street dragged in for the casual entertainment of the warders? Or are they individuals who it is reasonable to believe may have information due to their activities that could be used to save the lives of troops and civilians alike?
Ok, the moral dilemma. How far do you go in trying to extract the information that you belive these individuals are holding when you know that not to extract it could lead to further loss of life?
"You want loyalty? ......get a dog!"
Exactly....would it be acceptable to interogate, for days or weeks if needs be, a bunch of known IRA members as to the where-abouts of the next batch of explosions?
Cos the bad guys get let out of jail, and weeks/months later are back inside again.....for some excessively violent act against the oppostion of the day.
and as for the Gwantanamo (sp? cos I cant spell it) bay UK residents being held now jumping on the bandwagon of claims of abuse....
damn right they are getting abused....to kneel down with your head in a bag and to be tied up all day must be horrific...
but not as bad as flying someone elses plane into a Nuclear Reactor or setting your plimsoles on fire on a flight
And of course everyone held by us and the Americans with no right to a fair trial and no right of appeal without being advised of the charges against them and subject to abuse every day must be guilty, right? Of course they must...
Actually, being tied up for extended periods can be excruciatingly painful (never heard of rope torture?), and being made to kneel with a bag over your head so that you can't see what the people who you already know have abused you are about to do to you is certainly psychologically abusive.to kneel down with your head in a bag and to be tied up all day must be horrific...
Oh, and as for the Cherie Blair crack, exactly how much money do you think deportee subjects, people locked up without trial and so forth have, RVF500? Cherie Booth (she practices law under her maiden name) has ALWAYS undertaken civil liberties work and does a hell of a lot pro bono (that means "for free" RVF500), so I don't think her motivations in these cases are financial. Whether you agree with her or not (I certainly don't always), suggesting that she chases these cases for financial gain is farcical, stupid, untrue and offensive.
Dumb, dumb example...Reid was caught, tried and convicted in a civilian criminal court - in other words subject to due process of law. Of course the people being held in Guantanamo Bay...well...they don't need a trial, do they? Or legal representation...or even to be told what the charges agianst them are. That Kafka bloke had the right idea after all...setting your plimsoles on fire on a flight
Last edited by nichomach; 15-05-2004 at 02:13 PM.
I was slightly amused by the bit on the news where they say there banning certain types of interogation, erm like wtf, if theres a war on and someone knows something that can save the lives of your men then screw being humain about it the whole point of interogation is to extract information.....
Quite so, Trig; the Gestapo were quite right to torture Allied prisoners of war to extract information from them - especially those with information about dangerous terrorists like the Maquis or Francs Tireurs et Partisans. After all, they were saving German lives, weren't they? Beating people to a pulp and applying electrodes to them, or using drowning as a method of torture, well...they're merely...effective, aren't they?
Yes, very effective, you really think that if the iraqi terrorists captured someone they'd not torture them just because we wont torture them under the same conditions...
Dont get me wrong I'm not condoning the beating of prisoners, civilians or anyone but at the end of the day if there your enemy and they might know something that you want to know your not really gonna be nice to them whilst trying to extract that info if it'll save your allies...
Right, Trig, except they'd be doing the torturing because they're evil and we'd be doing it because...we're the good guys? What you're proposing is the idea that the end justifies the means, no matter how morally opprobrious those means might be. It doesn't matter what Al-Qaeda, or Ba'athist sympathisers might do, it still doesn't justify us adopting those measures; otherwise, what's the difference between us and them? The Iraqi people will merely have exchanged one bunch of murderous torturing thugs for another. To a certain extent you are the methods that you're prepared to adopt. Were I an Iraqi I might be tempted to question what this "democracy" gets you that you didn't have under the previous regime?
I didnt say they were the bad guys or that we were the good guys, at the end of the day people will get beaten and put under stress in the course of an interogation, thats the whole point of the interogation...
Suppose you had in a dark room the guy that planned the 9/11 hijackings, what would you do, ask him nicely if he knew anything and if he said no open the door and let him walk?
Every captured person of our side or theres could hold information that could save no one or 10 people or 10,000 people, if your in the armed forces then your sworn to do whatever you need to do to protect your country.
How would you feel if you had to interogate someone who said he knew nothing, you let him go and a few days later something he knew at the time u had him leads to an incident?
Who said we were better than them, there fighting for what they believe in, what they think is right, the same as us no?
The problem is people think were the good guys, they think that we shouldnt stoop to whatever levels, well at the end of the day not doing a job properly due to rules made up by someone thats never been shot at or been in that kind of situation will cost lives..
It starts with not being able to use certain methods to extract information, where does it stop?
The problem is, Trig, that the people being held in Iraq have nothing to do with 9/11. Between 70% to 90% of those being held have not committed any crimes at all (or so the ICRC estimates).
My question is, what gives anyone the right to occupy a country and treat people in a manner that they would not treat their own citizens?
"All our beliefs are being challenged now, and rightfully so, they're stupid." - Bill Hicks
Right, so if beating someone is a legitimate method of interrogation we should go back to letting the police beat confessions out of suspects. Why have trials at all when we can just inflict enough pain on someone that they'll confess to whatever we want?
No, I'd use interrogation methods that don't involve torture, in order to gain information tro supplement the evidence I already had - we are assuming that I would have some evidence, right? Not just adopting the "beat him until he says what we want" method of inquiry that you're advocating? If he talked, well and good. If not, I'd use whatever other evidence I had to gain a conviction, and send him to jail.
No, you're sworn to do whatever you can within the law to protect your country. An order to commit torture, for instance is not a lawful order, and thus the soldier is under no obligation to obey it; indeed the obligation is on the soldier NOT to obey an unlawful order. I'd also note that protecting a country includes protecting the ideals of that country, and protecting its reputation amongst other nations, and not just for idealistic reasons. Immediately after the Normandy landings, a bunch of Hitler Youth attempted to surrender to Canadian forces; the Canadians accepted the surrender, the Hitler Youth climbed out of their trench discarding their weapons, and stood along the edge with their hands up. The Canadians then shot them. Word spread like wildfire among the German forces, and units that would otherwise have surrendered fought to the last man, reasoning that they'd be shot if they surrendered, so why not take a few with them? Ordinary Iraqis can see people, many of whom will be absolutely innocent, being tortured and abused. Exactly how coooperative would you expect them to be after seeing that? How many recruits do you think that's creating for Al-Qaeda and the various Ba'athist remnants?
Better than if I had betrayed every ideal of justice and fairness that we're supposed to believe in by torturing him on the basis that "maybe he knows something...then again maybe he doesn't...ah, what the hell, let's torture him anyway...it's a giggle".
If we're not, if our intention is not to be "the good guys", if our intention is not to give Iraq something better than it had, then what we are doing is actively evil and criminal, and we should get the hell out.
Well, actually we are supposed to BE the good guys, we are supposed to believe in democracy, and human rights. I'd also point out that most of the rules against torture and inhumane treatment were created by people who had lived through periods where EVERYONE was shot at and large swathes of the world lost massive numbers of lives. This argument that "you haven't been there/done that so you can't judge" is bull****. It's always been bull****, but it's always the argument trotted out when someone objects to police brutality or military brutality or incompetence. Torturing people is wrong, OK? It's wrong when they do it, it's wrong when we do it. Some nebulous idea that you can make it right because you might save some lives down the line doesn't make it any less wrong.
What starts? Democracy? Freedom? Justice? Actual liberties and human rights? I'd rather that those DIDN'T stop, thanks, and I'd rather that that was what the Iraqis saw us believing and adhering to.
Absolutely. Couldn't agree more.
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